Loved the movie and Meryl Streep's and Amy Adams' performances.  Got a few chuckles when she called in sick and her husband told her to blog that she slept half the day and then felt better--been through this with several employees here who were active online during sick days.

What did you think of the way her manager handled her when he called her into his office?  I didn't read the book Julie and Julia, so I don't know if she got a bad performance review.

I totally agree with Californian-- this frees up HR professionals or managers from feeling any need to 'investigate' or make sure someone was out because they were really sick. Just give employees  X personal days per year and let them use them however they want.

By the way, I saw the movie too, and considering it was just one day she'd missed, I thought her boss came down a little hard. But it didn't exactly look like a fun place to work, did it?